Queensland Premier David Crisafulli has accused the Albanese government of launching a “siege” on small business, naming the botched credit card surcharge ban, proposed cuts to worker holiday visas and changes to trust taxation as part of that campaign.
In a speech to business leaders at a Centre for Economic Development Australia breakfast on Monday, Crisafulli also renewed Queensland's claim of an “inbuilt injustice” in the distribution of GST revenue, echoing Treasurer David Janetzki's call for a rethink.
“We've reached a point in the GST distribution where Western Australia has cut out an amazing deal, and I don't begrudge that … but the beneficiary has been the states that haven't been prepared to do the hard yards,” he said.
“Somehow we are viewed as big enough to stand on our own two feet, unlike the west, but small enough that we have to cop all the bad news. We're not getting the upside Victoria and New South Wales get, and we have to call it out.”
The premier, who said he would not use the address as a “pressure relief valve”, also pointed to the removal of card surcharges at check-out, the Tax Office's decision to disallow credit card payments on tax debt, changes to how trusts are taxed and potential changes to worker holiday visas as federal measures that amount to a siege on small businesses.
“We've got to have a discussion about this because it's so important for the country,” he said.
A descendant of Italian migrants, Crisafulli called for a more level-headed approach to the migration debate. “I just want people to come to the country, sign up to our values, work hard, be proud Aussies, and the country's better for it,” he said.
The end of the week marks two years of the LNP government, tipping it into the second half of its four-year term as it faces scrutiny over child safety concerns and its commitment to drastically cut ambulance ramping at hospitals. Crisafulli defended the government's approach to energy as economics rather than ideology, saying he did not understand why every energy debate had to become “some kind of ideological war”.
He listed critical minerals deals, the data centre energy carve-out and the 80-20 federal-state funding split on the Bruce Highway among the government's achievements, and said a “golden age” awaited Queensland if a middle road could be found on issues that divide the left and right of politics.